Lyme disease

I live out here in New Mexico where I’ve never even seen a tick on one of my animals much less been bitten by one, so I’m not really familiar with Lyme Disease. It seems, though, that if you live on the US east coast, you’ve been infected, and that motivated me to look into Lyme more.

What I have learned is scary, not because Lyme Disease is a killer, but because it isn’t. No, Lyme is a stealth disease, one that sneakily steals health and erodes a life without ever intending to kill its victim.

Googling tells me that the CDC and NIH recommend a single course of antibiotics as soon as you can after the first symptoms of Lyme Disease appear. If you get bit by a blacklegged tick (or deer tick, Ixodes scapularis) that harbors Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme bacterium can persist in your body for a lifetime.

Unfortunately, while most people recover when treated with a few weeks of antibiotics, some don’t. Some don’t recover even after months of IV treatment.

Maybe the antibiotics that were used didn’t do the job for those who continue to suffer from the symptoms. Or maybe there’s more going on — after all, there are 20 known species of Borrelia that can cause human illness. A tick can harbor two or more of them, passing them on to their human victim. Plus there are other non-Borrelia microbes that those ticks can generously share with you.

Or maybe there just weren’t any symptoms after being bit. Sometimes a person with a healthy immune system can harbor the bacteria for a long time and never display the obvious symptoms. But the bacteria are there, spreading throughout the victim’s body to eventually become an inseparable part of his or her microbiome.

You don’t want more antibiotics, though. Research shows that additional antibiotics don’t help people with lingering symptoms after an initial treatment. More antibiotics could make things worse rather than better. And to add insult to injury, the symptoms of chronic Lyme Disease are often incorrectly diagnosed since they could arise from many other causes.

Without a vaccine or a drug protocol that will work, right now the only thing you can do is to become generally healthier. This makes sense, given that chronic Lyme Disease is a whole-body issue. So the first step is to build up the immune system. This is the foundation upon which recovery is based for chronic Lyme and, in fact, for any health issue.

Building your immune system doesn’t mean you have to suffer! Getting rid of symptoms won’t get rid of the disease, of course, but you don’t need to feel terrible while you’re dealing with getting healthier. Keep in mind though — healing takes time, particularly when your health has been worn down by nasty bacteria. Plus you may have other health conditions that compound the effects of Lyme Disease.

So start with this:

Clean up your act if you’re abusing yourself with drugs, alcohol, or too much social media

Get more exercise if you’re a slug

Get more quality sleep if you’ve been burning the candle at both ends

Eat healthy: more raw veggies and less meat, and of course cut out the junk food

Reduce unnecessary stressors, such as social media and political arguments

Become proactive about your health and care of your own body because you only get one and because you can’t expect others to care for it more than you do

It’s possible that with just the above you can reduce your symptoms and help your own immune system to deal with the Borrelia. You may not ever be free of it, but you might be able to live a normal, symptom-free (and by the way, healthier all around) life.

There are claims for alternative treatments for Lyme Disease. Google led me to the Buhner Healing Lyme approach. Will it work? I don’t know, but I like Stephen Buhner’s smile on his website. He reminds me of my brother-in-law, Jeff, who builds beautiful acoustic guitars. I also liked the fact that Buhner tells you what the herbs are instead of making you opt in for anything.